Semiconductor devices are used in a variety of electronic applications, such as personal computers, cell phones, digital cameras, and other electronic equipment, as examples. Semiconductor devices are typically fabricated by sequentially depositing insulating or dielectric layers, conductive layers, and semiconductive layers of material over a semiconductor substrate, and patterning the various material layers using lithography to form circuit components and elements thereon.
A transistor is an element that is used often in semiconductor devices. There may be a large number of transistors (e.g. hundreds of, thousands of, or millions of transistors) on a single integrated circuit (IC), for example. A common type of transistor used in semiconductor device fabrication is a metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistor (MOSFET), as an example. A planar transistor (e.g. planar MOSFET) typically includes a gate dielectric disposed over a channel region in a substrate, and a gate electrode formed over the gate dielectric. A source region and a drain region of the transistor are formed on either side of the channel region.
Multiple gate field-effect transistors (MuGFETs) are a recent development in semiconductor technology. One type of MuGFET is referred to as a fin field-effect transistor (FinFET), which is a transistor structure that includes a fin-shaped semiconductor material that is raised vertically out of the semiconductor surface of an integrated circuit.